April 28, 2012

As a 28-year-old student at Harvard Law Barack Obama supported the activism of Professor Derrick Bell and urged his peers to open their hearts and minds to the words of Critical Race Theory's founder.

I've already blogged about the stupidity of attributing significance to the student who gave a nice introduction to a venerable professor. I won't repeat that. This is about PJ Media's failure to see that Bell is attacking liberals. It's stupid to tear down Bell as a way to attack Democrats. Bell is attacking Democrats!

PJ Media is reading one of the lesser Bell works, "Afrolantica Legacies." It's not available in Kindle, or I'd buy a copy right now, but I see that it's like about the 7 millionth best-selling book over at Amazon right now. The book is a collection of essays, and PJM displays photos of some pages in the book, including a collection of "rules of racial preservation," which is the first thing the PJM article decides to trash. But let's look at Bell's first rule:

No matter how justified by racial injustices they are intended to remedy, civil rights policies, including affirmative action, are implemented only when they further the interests of whites.

Hello? Who implements these race-based policies like affirmative action? Liberals! Derrick Bell is saying that white people do this when and only when it works for their advantage! The critical race thinking you're invited to do here is to understand how, when white people purport to advance black people, they are really exploiting black people for their own advantage. This is an attack on the work of the Democratic Party and other liberals. Conservatives are on the sidelines of this battle.

Frederick Douglass, speaking to a group of abolitionists almost 140 years ago, delivered a message lost on today’s majority:

“[I]n regard to the colored people, there is always more that is benevolent, I perceive, than just, manifested towards us. What I ask for the negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice . The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us… . I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are worm-eaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! … And if the negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! … [Y]our interference is doing him positive injury.” What the Black Man Wants: An Address Delivered in Boston, Massachusetts, on 26 January 1865, reprinted in 4 The Frederick Douglass Papers 59, 68 (J. Blassingame & J. McKivigan eds. 1991) (emphasis in original)....

Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. We hear the echo of the cry in Bell's first rule. Thomas ends his dissent:

It has been nearly 140 years since Frederick Douglass asked the intellectual ancestors of the Law School to “[d]o nothing with us!” and the Nation adopted the Fourteenth Amendment. Now we must wait another 25 years to see this principle of equality vindicated.

(Only 16 more years, if that's a serious time limit.)

Here's Bell's 3d rule:

Coalition building is an enterprise with valuable potential as long as its pursuit does not obscure the basic fact: nobody can free us but ourselves.

That's so much blander and duller than Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! But it's sounding the same chord.

Yeah, there's plenty of left-wing stuff in Bell's old book, but the basic insight of Critical Race Theory is skepticism about liberals. Why dig up Bell in 2012 and smack him around unless you yourself want to racialize everything?

Why? Ironically, Bell's Rule #1 might apply: The things white people do in the name of race are done only when they further the interests of whites.

"Derrick Bell is saying that white people do this when and only when it works for their advantage!"

Bell's philosophy is despicable and pernicious in that it is the religion of eternal grievance. No matter what whitey does, we will interpret it as being entirely self-serving. It is utterly inconceivable that people would actually do things which work against their own interests.

That Obama would even slightly support such a "scholar" should rightly be as radioactive as support for someone like David Duke.

Howard, do you really fail to see the racism in Bell's thesis? It's right there in the Professor's essay. You might try the old trick of reversing the races in question, rendering it thus: "The things black people do in the name of race are done only when they further the interests of blacks."

Let me break it down for you: Bell said that members of a race will only act in a certain way in order to further their own race's interests. Where does that leave Martin Luther King, Thomas Sowell, or Abraham Lincoln? Their motivations must be awfully convoluted.

Conservative's knee jerk need to complain about being called racists by black racists only shows that one is easily sucked into a kindergarten level of tribal conflict with no thoughtful analysis allowed.

The Professor exposes that in this post.

The Hannity and Beck level of Fox News pandering to conservatives has become a WWF style imitation of conflict that it is BORING. And our Professor always fights boring.

Written by someone who I would bet a dollar, had never heard of Derrick Bell before the Breitbart idiocy, and who still has never actually read anything by Bell.

It would be interesting to see what percentage of people in the media and throughout the blogosphere, who have made forceful claims about Bell over the last little while, had never heard of him before the Breitbart idiocy, and still have never read anything by him.

Chief among which, the white left will never give away their right to say that sex outside a marriage is fine, even though it risks great destruction and is clearly the very thing that is devastating the African American community.

Help the blacks by re-enshrining monogamy and fidelity as the moral standard in society?

Never. The white left will never, ever do that. In stead, they'll push abortion at the blacks, and call themselves extra compassionate.

Much of the vitriol from black leaders is because their minions are upset that the increasing Hispanic population is gaining economic and political strength the old fashioned way. So, rhhardin is correct about black institutions controlling blacks. However, there are now 2 bad guys, the whites who they talk about, and the Hispanics, who they try and divert attention from so as to not cause an uprising within their ranks. There are no "Hiuspanic leaders" per se. The leaders are the fathers and mothers who get married, have children, raise them properly, and work hard. And, Hispanics vote both parties, increasing their political leverage. Something the righteous black leader, Jackie Robinson, said was the only way to gain political clout.

traditionalguy, you argue the politics on this point well. Maybe I'm too optimistic, but like chickenlittle above, I think the electorate is increasingly disgusted with identity politics, and will reject Obama's embrace of it.

This one, however, is meant to show our little Comandante has been at it all his life.

Ann Althouse said...

But let's look at Bell's first rule:No matter how justified by racial injustices they are intended to remedy, civil rights policies, including affirmative action, are implemented only when they further the interests of whites.Hello? Who implements these race-based policies like affirmative action? Liberals! Derrick Bell is saying that white people do this when and only when it works for their advantage!

Where does it say Bell must be a Democrat?

He can, in fact, have more integrity in that way than effete small c communist, William Ayers, and see through the white Left as well as anything else white.

If he's a racist, he can hate the phony white Lefties for the plantation they've created as much as anybody else.

...because you and the many for whom you current stand on this thread, have read so goddamned much of it already. You understand so much you don't even need to read it!!!! That's how informed, erudite, thoughtful about the discussion that you are!

Go to Shelby Steel's model of black leaders and people of notoriety wherein he casks them as either a threaten-er or the deal-maker.

Obama is the ultimate deal maker.

He's been brokering absolution to the white for years.

More Steel: "The great ingenuity of interventions like affirmative action has not been that they give Americans a way to identify with the struggle of blacks, but that they give them a way to identify with racial virtuousness quite apart from blacks."

The Professor said: "Conservatives should appreciate the skepticism about efforts to help black people. It's not an antagonistic insight for people who's idea of the best policy is color-blindness.

"Now, let Derrick Bell rest in peace. The issue of the day is Obama."

Really? Obama was 28 when he praised Bell. You think that's just youthful silliness? I think it's a signpost. I think Obama uses identity politics opportunistically. He made beautiful speeches against identity politics in 2004 and 2008. Is he a liar, or a thief?

I'd love to see someone make a Youtube of Douglass' speech. The emptiness of today's movement needs a grounding in history.

In L.A. yesterday the usual racialists came to town to use Trayvon Martin's family and commemorate the Rodney King Riots. No one came. Perhaps the bastard son movement of MLK's true movement is already over.

Conservatives should appreciate the skepticism about efforts to help black people. It's not an antagonistic insight for people who's idea of the best policy is color-blindness."

I think this ignores a fundamental difference between Bell and conservative black leaders like Thomas. The conservatives argue in favor of a colorblind society while Bell was for all kinds of race-conscience set-asides. He just would never recognize that any of the benefits were due to altruism. Really, critical race theory can be boiled down to having your cake and eating it too.

Let's take Bell at his word and interpret AA as benefiting whites: How exactly to whites gain by seeing their sons and daughters loosing jobs and university seats they would have gotten in a purely merit based criteria? The underlying logic is one of threat and intimidation. You will give us our set-asides or else... This is somehow noble?

"No matter how justified by racial injustices they are intended to remedy, civil rights policies, including affirmative action, are implemented only when they further the interests of whites."

Hello? Who implements these race-based policies like affirmative action? Liberals! Derrick Bell is saying that white people do this when and only when it works for their advantage! The critical race thinking you're invited to do here is to understand how, when white people purport to advance black people, they are really exploiting black people for their own advantage. This is an attack on the work of the Democratic Party and other liberals. Conservatives are on the sidelines of this battle.

I read this differently. Bell's dog whistle to liberals is that the only "civil rights policies" that are actually "implemented" are the ones the white majority will allow. While that majority includes white liberals, Bell's critique is that the system is hidebound by white conservatives who are racist. (And remember, there is no such thing as a "black" conservative.)

According to Bell, the problem is not white liberals and the civil rights policies they would implement if they had absolute control, it's a problem with the majority of whites who in the end must sign-off on anything that's actually implemented.

It's a two-for, really. It allows Bell to deliver a racially divisive message along ideological lines. And, like radical utopians throughout history, Bell explains the failure of policies liberals implement as the result of them not being systemic enough.

Bell is not doing much of anything at the moment, since he died last year. Bell was attacking Democrats in 1998, for not being antagonistic enough towards white people. In the ensuing fourteen years Democrats have taken his criticism to heart.

But let's look at Bell's first rule

You looked at it. Let's read it, and see where that gets us.

No matter how justified by racial injustices they are intended to remedy, civil rights policies, including affirmative action

The strong implication here is that civil rights policies, including affirmative action, are justified. When a debater is making that argument, Conservatives are not on the sidelines!

implemented only when they further the interests of whites

Which means that if the policies which he thought were justified are to be implemented effectively, white people must be shut out of the implementation.

You slander Frederick Douglass by comparing him to that demagogue. Maybe all black men sound alike to you, but they're advocating very different ideas.

the basic insight of Critical Race Theory is skepticism about liberals

No, the basic insight is skepticism about white leftists because they are white. It's straightforward advocacy of racism, and it was embraced by the man you voted for.

Why dig up Bell in 2012 and smack him around unless you yourself want to racialize everything?

It's embarrassing that an adult person could even type that sentence, much less show it to other people.

This is personal. I’m not writing with any hope that beating the drum about Obama’s radical history will turn the outcome of the election. My objective is to begin a self-fulfilling prophecy of my own: 15 years from now, when I have children, they will not live in a political culture that protects and trains their tormentors.

Swindle's thrust is only tangentially anti-Obama-- his target is Derrick Bell. I agree with him that it is past time to call out the racism of blacks like Bell, who seems to have learned nothing by the struggle of his own race. Why do we condone the overt, mainstream racism of people like Bell, Sharpton, and Farrakhan? Does simply being black make it just fine to hate?

Being smart with the use of conservative racism would probably just confuse the people it's intended for.

What does that mean?

Did you read and understand Ann's point, and what she was trying to say with this, "Why dig up Bell in 2012 and smack him around unless you yourself want to racialize everything?"?

The attack on Bell doesn't need to be coherent or make sense. The conservative race-baiting strategy is about using racial and cultural revanchism against the President. It's not required to make sense in any kind of intellectual way, and it would probably only confuse people to use logic and reason to engage in these racialized dog-whistles aimed at the president.

narrowgate wrote: It would be interesting to see what percentage of people in the media and throughout the blogosphere, who have made forceful claims about Bell over the last little while, had never heard of him before the Breitbart idiocy, and still have never read anything by him.

That is just stupid smearing. Here's why: I know of a few brilliant women in science who were impeded along the way and had to overcome unfair and sexist barriers to get to where they got to. Even knowing this I wouldn't affirm outcomes-based policies which only counted numbers of female heads at universities.

Reduce the barriers and the unfair outcomes will change--not the other way around.*

One doesn't have to know the specifics about Bell to evaluate the validity of his opinions. His "theory" fails the test. ______________*Ah but the barrier is the hiring you say. Not true: the barrier is still just all the colorblind things you have to do to be considered for the job.

Althouse is probably wrong and Instapundit is probably right. Obama has been used to sanitize the radical figures that have surrounded him his whole life, to give them a veneer of normalcy. It is appropriate to expose how radical those radicals were who influenced him (including his mom and dad), this will help destroy his reputation. Too bad McCain ran such a pussy campaign vs Obama.

The other day, on BBC news, there was a report on Charles Taylor's trial and conviction. Charles Taylor was the Liberian strong man who recruited an army of child soldiers to gain control of the Sierra Leone diamond mines. The atrocities these child soldiers committed were truly ghastly. To use children to maim other children: there cannot be a crime more loathsome. And all so Charles Taylor could get rich and have some spare diamonds with which to impress Naomi Campbell....At his trial, Taylor maintained that he was the victim of neocolonialism. The BBC interviewed some people in Liberia who apparently still supported him. I don't know how many they are, but the very fact that there are people who can express sympathy with such a monster is damning.....But there you have it. George Zimmerman kills a single black child under ambiguous circumstances, and every last black person in America has to express his outrage. Charles Taylor kills and maims thousands of children, and it passes unnoticed. I suppose Derrick Bell could fit Charles Taylor into his theory in some way and explain how Charles Taylor was acting in furtherance of white interests. Yeah, right....My own theory is that Derrick Bell by his critical race theory is acting to further white interests. So long as black people feel that men like George Zimmerman are a greater threat to their interests than man like Charles Taylor, they will continue to be maimed and mutilated.

Serious, Professor Althouse, Obama used Bell as a primer in his Civil Right Law Class, re Kantor; 2008,Kagan as Dean,edited part of AfroAtlantica Legacies. as Breitbart's outfits have revealed. He requested a blurb from him, on his first book, It's possible you didn't know who Obama was then, or you simply didn't care. But there is no excuse now

The result of contraception/ abortion is that the African American birth rate is below replacement level since 2006. African-Americans are 12% of the population but 34 % of abortions. They are dying out as a group. Why would the government under Obama subsidize this to make it happen even more, even faster? Because the feminist part of the Democratic party wants it, e.g. Sandra Fluke. She should get her thousand dollar contraceptives. The African-Americans? As CRT says: they don't matter to the liberals.

Rather than the matriarchy (Huffington, Walters, L.C. from The Hills, and Couric) being gatekeeps, the PJ Media crew decided folks might like to see more info about Obama, as opposed to less info like not running this story would therefore dictate.

This seems American to me; the folks at PJ Media I mean.

Much like Bell was free (well, in my opinion he was) to influence Obama, we are free to judge this association between them.

Claims for less talk should nearly always arouse more talk, so as to help prevent claims of less talk should the one making the claim become aware the claim causes the opposite of its intention.

Zimmerman is apparently black. There was a weird attempt to paint him white, led by the president. But now it turns out he's black. I can't keep up. Apparently Zimmerman sees himself as black. Who decides: is it the individual, the group, or the president himself?

"This is about PJ Media's failure to see that Bell is attacking liberals."

If you'd read further into the piece then you would have seen that I wrote extensively about Bell's attacks on liberals. His writings comparing Thurgood Marshall to a sex slave are especially tasteless. Also several essays in the book repeat his thesis that liberal civil rights efforts are doomed to failure.

"Yeah, there's plenty of left-wing stuff in Bell's old book, but the basic insight of Critical Race Theory is skepticism about liberals."

I would more characterize CRT as skepticism about classical liberalism, the legitimacy of the Constitution, and concept of Rule of Law. I featured a follow up to the series excerpting Bell's definition: http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/04/18/whos-afraid-of-the-big-bad-barack-obama/